Former MMA Fighter 'Mayhem' Miller Pleads Guilty in Latest Legal Woe

Published Jul 19, 2019 at 7:58 AM

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Former mixed martial arts fighter Jason "Mayhem" Miller pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to a year in jail for smashing a large marble table at his girlfriend's La Habra residence and violating a protective order to stay away from her, according to court records.

Miller, 38, pleaded guilty to a felony count of vandalism and a misdemeanor count of violating a protective stay-away order. Miller has been in custody since his arrest Oct. 19 for smashing the table and punching holes in and removing doors from the home and derailing the garage door, according to prosecutors.

Miller pleaded guilty to beating the same girlfriend on Sept. 27 of 2017. He was sentenced in Nov. 27, 2017, to 124 days in jail and released with credit for time served, according to court records.

Miller was arrested again on Jan. 11, 2018, when Miller was found to be in possession of a bulletproof vest and various other weapons such as nunchucks, various knives, a machete, an axe, a samurai sword and replica assault weapons, according to a probation officer's report. Police also found human growth hormone and various other performance enhancing drugs apparently obtained without a prescription.

MMA Fighter Surrenders After Live-Tweeting Standoff

Jason "Mayhem" Miller was taken into police custody after a domestic dispute turned into an hours-long standoff involving SWAT officers, K-9 units and a flurry of bizarre tweets. Mekahlo Medina reports from Mission Viejo for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014.

(Published Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014)

Miller, whose progress on probation was characterized as "limited and disappointing" by the probation officer, dropped out of a drug and alcohol recovery program. On Sept. 23 of last year, he tested positive for the ingredient in marijuana and various opioids, according to court records.

When Miller resolved a litany of legal troubles in 2017, prosecutors said Miller could face up to 21 years in prison if he ran afoul of the law again. Miller accepted a plea bargain from Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald on April 5, 2017. At the time, he said he was committed to clearing probation.

At the time, Miller said his repeated contacts with law enforcement started after he was accused of domestic violence by an ex-girlfriend. Shortly after the allegations surfaced, he lost his job as an analyst with Fox Sports and couldn't get any more fights.

"My entire life turned into a crisis," Miller told reporters in 2017. Fitzgerald sentenced him to 100 days in jail, but he had already accrued credit for time served he did not have to spend any more time in custody.

Miller was acquitted on Feb. 1, 2017, of beating up the former girlfriend, but other charges involving his conflicts with law enforcement were set aside at the time for a separate trial.

In one conflict with Orange County sheriff's deputies, he was live-tweeting the encounter as they tried to serve him with an arrest warrant at his Mission Viejo home in October 2014.

In July 2016, he got into an argument with two women, one of whom slapped him, at the Saddle Ranch Chop House in the Triangle Square shopping center in Costa Mesa. The heavily intoxicated Miller, who grabbed the woman who slapped him by the leg, was detained by a security guard at the restaurant until police arrived, police said.

In January 2016, Miller spray-painted graffiti on a wall of a now-shuttered tattoo parlor in Lake Forest. That same month, he cranked up the volume of a stereo in the same tattoo parlor, blowing out the speakers, prosecutors said.